As the first Director of Programmes and Advocacy at the Rights and Democracy Centre from its founding until 1996, I was given the privilege of working with an inspired leadership at the Centre as we carefully crafted policies, priorities and program guidelines which would assist us in fulfilling its mission and mandate. From its inception in 1988 and the extraordinary commitment of a visionary Board of Directors and the 24/7 commitment of its staff, R & D has been able to chart a course which has vigorously promoted Canadian values and democratic ideals abroad in areas of the world where repressive governments have eschewed and trampled upon the rights of their citizens.
It has created a distinguished and proudly Canadian legacy. R & D was the first international organization to provide recognition and significant financial support to the democratically elected Burmese government-in-exile and its courageous and still-imprisoned leader Aung San Suu Kyi. It both warned and advised the Canadian government about the looming atrocities in Rwanda and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Indigenous communities in the Americas against repressive governments and rapacious mining companies – some of them, Canadian. It played an important role in dismantling the Apartheid regime in South Africa and has been a brilliant beacon for the rights of women world-wide. In its early years, it had done so by a governance structure that developed a consensual approach to policies and procedures, a president with vision and the persistence to advocate for it and zealous staff who adhered fundamentally to the principle that all human beings have inalienable rights that no government has the right to revoke. R & D personnel worked in difficult, often threatening environments. Some of us were body-searched and shot-at in the performance of our duties. The work was done with integrity while diligently accounting for public monies received, and charting a course that ensured it was not controlled or manipulated by the bureaucrats at Foreign Affairs.
The hobbled and disabling governance performance recently typified by the majority of the Board of Directors at R & D has everything to do with competence and ideology, or more precisely, the lack of the former and superabundance of the latter. From my discussions with former colleagues and my knowledge of the recently deceased president, Remy Beauregard, he was part of the solution, not the problem.
I knew Remy Beauregard and at different junctures in my own professional career both worked with him and for him. His professionalism, integrity and passionate dedication to human rights and accountable management were beyond reproach. He was what many indigenous cultures refer to as a "valuable man" – someone who dedicated his life to improving the lot of the disadvantaged and dispossessed. Aside from that conviction, and unlike some of the "directors" comprising the current R & D board, he did not have an ideological bone in his body. Many in the human rights community celebrated his selection as president of the Rights and Democracy Centre. It is sad to see that some of his board colleagues with far less creds than he managed to contribute to his untimely death.
Two fundamental criteria should be used to justify an appointment to the board of directors of a publically- funded institution like Rights and Democracy. First, is the candidate possessed of sufficient and senior-level practical experience to contribute to the management and accountability of its human and financial resources? Secondly, to what extent is the candidate sufficiently experienced and disposed to support the mission and mandate of the institution? In the case of the R & D Centre that is to advance democratic principles in governance models abroad and, as important, to support those groups and individuals (most usually, non-government organizations) who labour for the rights of the disadvantaged and dispossessed – whether they be in Rwanda or Palestine!
Who other than the Prime Minister's Office makes judgements about the experience of those candidates and their disposition to support what, in this case, may be a controversial mandate? Who makes the selection for this board and the hundreds if not thousands of others who are part of the fiefdom of the Prime Minister's Office and the spin doctors and doctrinaires who lurk and lurch therein?
Ah – now there's the rub!
That there is no parliamentary vetting process that is worthy of the name, no opportunity – as so amply and sometimes crassly used by our American neighbours, to consider the qualifications and experience of thousands of candidates about to sup at the public trough of Canadian agencies and crown corporations, is profoundly unacceptable in a democratic society. This is yet another indication of the rapidly growing democratic deficit in Canada nurtured and cultivated by a government sworn to secrecy and backroom appointments. To blithely dismiss, as some have done, the important work of Rights and Democracy with remonstrances about righting the ship when the rudder is clearly damaged but blatantly evident is irresponsible.
Some have proposed that there are other government agencies that can do the work of the Centre and become a vehicle for advocacy and human rights. Before joining the Rights and Democracy Centre, I served as Chief of Staff to the minister of External Relations and International Development. Believe me; you do not want CIDA delivering programs that are very aptly suited to the domain of the Centre. That would be akin to removing a stubborn table screw by using a sledge hammer and a blow torch! Those who maintain that an agency like CIDA can do this work conceal profound ignorance of both our aid system and how social change occurs under repressive regimes.
The turmoil at the Rights and Democracy Centre is not about, and is well beyond the mundane inanity of 'he said/ she said.' All Canadians who give a damn about human rights and the important legacy of the Centre deserve more than such a superficial consideration.
When did this internal rupture begin, why did it have to manifest itself by the extraordinary measure of a complete staff rebellion – an action of very last resort? Why are Palestinian human rights organizations the focus of the dispute? Why is there the suggested "opaqueness" in its current accountability? What blinkers are preventing the powers-that-be from seeing the very large elephant in the room? And finally, to what extent is the current, and justifiably maligned, secret and unaccountable system of appointing incompetent ideologues to public agencies at the root of this problem?
Peter Andre Globensky
